Thursday, July 19, 2012

This
was the first time KRG attempted to harness the Internet to see if a semblance of physical presence could be afforded by the Skype
application to allow traveling members to attend. Although it is
commonly used to connect people in a video session remotely, Skype
did not work on the day because a reliable broadband connection could
not be established. Joe and KumKum in Boston were keen to attend; the Internet failure was a disappointment for all.

Talitha and Gopa

Kamala
Das (Kamala Surayya, when she died) must now rank as number one in
the frequency of choice by KRG members.

Sunil

A
most unlikely poet to read was Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the
modern Olympic Games. His verse which would have been rejected at a
club poetry contest, nevertheless won an Olympic gold medal; talk of
match fixing!

Gopa and Bobby

As
ever the discussions in the group were lively and led in many
directions. Here are the readers pictured at the end of the session:

The poetry session of July 13 held keen interest. If it went
as planned it would have pioneered remote reading at KRG. Joe and Kumkum who were away in Boston on travel were to join in via Skype.

Bobby
mailed the group a day prior about the proposed remote participation
by KumKum and Joe:

A small step
for Skype but a giant step for KRG...

Mathew
had successfully tried out the connection but on the evening it was not stable, sad to say. The sound and picture
were too poor to enable reading of any quality. A sample
of what happened.

8
a.m in Boston and 5.30 p.m at Yacht Club India

A
garbled unclear audio: Good morning… Hello, hello…can you hear
us??

Bobby
remarked, “Neil Armstrong must have sounded like this.”

Go
ahead…hear…yes…

Gone,
it’s gone…

Sunil
: It reminds one of the bad old days of trunk calls…. Number please….

Hello
Joe, can you hear us, can you see us…

Okay
we will carry on…

Ok
bye

A
few phone calls and quick mails were exchanged between the distant KRG duo and the larger group at the CYC, to convey their poetic
disappointment. The session began on this note. Too bad – Joe and
Kumkum were sorely missed.

Talitha

Talitha
read a poem by Emily Brontë,
known more for her classic novel, Wuthering
Heights,
than her poetry. The poem, The
Night Is Darkening Round Me,
also called Spellbound,
was written in November 1837. It was one of the 45 poems that were
part of the Gondal saga. Gondal was a mythical island in the North
Pacific about which Emily and her younger sister, Anne, had written
poems and stories since childhood. The speaker in the poem is Augusta
Geraldina Almeda, the fatal heroine of Gondal. It is a dramatic
lyric.

Talitha
said she was reading How To Fall In Love With a Poem, a book by
the American poet Edward Hirsch; she found this short, seemingly simple
but intense poem there. Priya said it had the same mood as Wuthering
Heights.

Talitha
pointed out the feminine rhyme scheme and the use of a large number
of figures of speech in the poem. She said it was a well-crafted
poem. It captured the mysterious immobility that had come upon the
protagonist.

Bobby

Bobby
chose to read a poem that went with the contemporary mood of the
world's biggest sporting event, the Olympics, that are scheduled to
take place in a couple of weeks in London.

He
came upon an essay, Champions
of Verse, Poetry’s Relationship With the Olympics, in
The New York Times:

A
poetry Olympiad was held alongside the Olympics in ancient times.
Bobby said he had no idea that that the Olympics once included the
arts, especially poetry, until he read this article.

The
relationship between poetry and the Olympics goes back to the very
origins of the Games. In ancient Greece, literary events were an
indispensable part of athletic festivals, where fully clothed writers
could be as popular with the crowd as the athletes who strutted about
in the nude, gleaming bodies covered with olive oil. Spectators
packing the sanctuary of Zeus sought perfection in both body and
mind. Champion athletes commissioned great poets like Pindar to
compose their victory odes, which were sung at lavish banquets by
choruses of boys.

Philosophers and historians introduced cutting-edge
work, while lesser-known poets set up stalls or orated from
soapboxes. The refined cultural ambience of the ancient Olympics
would put contemporary opening ceremonies, with their parade of pop
stars, to shame.

Criticism
could be meted out brutally: when the Sicilian dictator Dionysius
presented sub-par poems in 384 B.C., disgusted sports fans beat him
up and trashed his tent. At other Greek athletic festivals, like
those at Delphi, dedicated to Apollo, the god of poetry and music,
verse recitation was featured as a competitive event, along with
contests for the lyre and choral dancing.

For
much of the 20th century, poetry was an official, medal-winning
competition in the Games. The French visionary who revived the
Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, always insisted Greek-style arts
contests should be allowed alongside athletics. His dream was
realized in 1912 at Stockholm, where literature, together with music,
painting, sculpture and even architecture, became Olympic events in
the so-called Pentathlon of the Muses, in which all submissions had
to be “directly inspired by the idea of sport.” In seven
Olympiads, writers — almost always poets — were awarded gold,
silver and bronze medals alongside sprinters, weight lifters and
wrestlers. The general literature category was then expanded in 1928,
1936 and 1948 to include specific contests for epic and lyric poetry.

For
this year’s games the panel of literary experts has decided to
adorn London Olympic village with a line from Tennyson’s
Ulysses to sum
up the gritty determination of that ancient wanderer:

To
strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

Bobby
quoted Emily Dickinson’s cheery line, which he truly enjoys:

Fame
is a bee.

It
has a song —

It
has a sting —

Ah,
too, it has a wing.

Priya

Priya
noted that a Cultural Olympiad had been held last week, from June 26
to July 1, in London, as a prelude to the Olympics. Called Poetry
Parnassus, it was an international poetry event in the spirit of
the Olympic Games, a gathering of poets across the world nominated to
represent each of the 204 countries participating in the summer
Olympics. The six-day gathering, possibly the largest poetry event in
the world (definitely in Britain) included workshops and discussions
with representative poets.

Priya
read The Adulterous Citizen by
Tishani Doshi, who represented India. It will appeal to folk
who who straddle the world and make several places their home. Here
is the ending line:

to
lie in the folds on one city while listening to the jagged, carnal
breaths of another

You
can read an interview with her at the event, and a video of her
reciting the poem, here

Priya
also read Phrase Book
by Jo Shapcott, the poet who represented the host country,
Britain. Ms Shapcott is a poet, editor and lecturer who has won the
UK’s National Poetry Competition twice, as well as several major
literary awards, such as the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best
First Collection, the Costa Book Award, the Forward Poetry Prize for
Best Collection, etc. The raging sentiments in Britain against Iraq
War and Tony Blair’s government were discussed since Shapcott’s
poem dealt with it at one level. Blair continues to maintain he was
right in his decision, although the justifications presented by him
in Parliament are now seen to be based on known falsehoods. The group
were debated the matter.

What
is the voting system used to select the poet who will represent a
country at such international events? Many felt that a different
poet's work would have done better justice to the great poetic
tradition of India.

Gopa

Gerard
Manley Hopkins was the poet read by Gopa. She chose to read
Spring and Fall. As a
student Gopa was inspired by this poem and she continues to be
stirred by it. His second poem Brothersbrought about a lively discussion whether the ‘brother’ in
the poem was Hopkin’s lover. But though he had attractions toward
men, there is no evidence of any physical involvement. Hopkins’
sprung rhythm, his conversion to Catholicism, his strong religious
views, and his homoerotic impulses were discussed. It may be noted
that out of self-abnegation his poems remained unpublished during his
lifetime.

Mathew

Mathew
read poems by the black American poet, Claude
McKay (1889-1948). Claude McKay, a Jamaican American writer
and poet, was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance and wrote
three novels: Home to Harlem (1928), Banjo (1929), and
Banana Bottom (1933). McKay also authored a collection of
short stories, Gingertown (1932), and two autobiographical
books, A Long Way from Home (1937) and Harlem: Negro
Metropolis (1940). His book of poetry, Harlem Shadows
(1922) was among the first books published during the Harlem
Renaissance. His collection, Selected Poems (1953), was
published posthumously.

McKay
was attracted to Communism in his early life, though he was never a
card-carrying member. He was a highly political novelist, said
Mathew. His early poems are apolitical. The group felt that his verse
was steeped in romantic language and old world imagery. Talitha found
it to be sickly sweet, and possessed of a self-conscious lyrical
quality. The short poems Mathew read were: A Memory of June,
Flower of Love and The Tired Worker.

Talitha,
overcome by the saccharine sweetness of the language, called him the
'Sarojini Naidu of Harlem.' She quoted the frequent use of
exclamatory phrases like: O whisper, O my soul, O dawn, O my rebel
heart, etc. as being of Wordsworthian vintage.

Sunil

Sunil
brought the whole session to a state of excitement by reading Kamala
Das. No other poet seems to stir the group as much as
she has done in the past. Kamala Das has been
read before but she is always a treat to read. Talitha said she had
read her before at a session. Priya said she had interviewed the poet, who defined
her present state, as a 60- year-old, to be a “river in spate”
She was a jilted lover at the time when Priya met her and yet she was
spirited and full of verve. See

Sunil
read My Grandmother’s House
and said it reminded him of his ammuma’s house. The next poem he
read was In Love,
from Summer In Calcutta, where the poet talks of her “unending
lust.” The group felt that she lived in far more liberal times and
that she would be attacked now, as the artist M.F. Husain was, for
free expression of art, unconcerned with the sensibilities of the
larger society. Talitha’s cousin Anna Philpose joined in by telling
the group her (generally favourable?) views on Kamala Das' poetry.
The poet’s views on feminism, eroticism, death, and conversion to
Islam were briefly discussed.

The
session ended with Mathew taking a photograph of the group.

The
next reading of the novel, Three Men In a Boat, by Jerome K.
Jerome is scheduled for August 10.

The Poems

Talitha

The
night is darkening round me

The
night is darkening round me,

The
wild winds coldly blow;

But
a tyrant spell has bound me,

And
I cannot, cannot go.

The
giant trees are bending

Their
bare boughs weighed with snow;

The
storm is fast descending,

And
yet I cannot go.

Clouds
beyond clouds above me,

Wastes
beyond wastes below;

But
nothing drear can move me;

I
will not, cannot go.

Emily Jane
Brontë

Bobby

If ever a man strivesWith all his soul's endeavour, sparing himself

Neither expense nor labour to attain

True excellence, then must we give to those

Who have achieved the goal, a proud tribute

Of lordly praise, and shun

All thoughts of envious jealousy.

To a poet's mind the gift is slight, to speak

A kind word for unnumbered toils, and build

For all to share a monument of beauty.

Pindar, stanza from one of his Isthmian Odes, translated byGeoffrey S. Conway

Priya

The
Adulterous Citizen

I
am an adulterous resident; when I am in one city, I am dreaming of
the other. I am an exile; citizen of the country of longing.

SUKETU
MEHTA, Maximum City

When
it comes to it,

there’s
only the long, paved road

that
leads to a house

with
a burning light.

A
house you can never own,

but
allows you

to
sleep in its bed

without
demanding sex,

eat
from its cupboards

without
paying,

lie
in the granite cool of its tub

without
drowning.

And
only when the first shards

of
day slice through

the
blinds

of
the basement windows

nudging
you

with
something of a whisper,

something
like, Maybe it’s time to go –

do
you finally drag

your
suitcases

up
the carpeted stairs,

out
the front door,

on
to the summer pavements.

It
is nothing

like
losing a lover,

or
leaving behind

the
lanes of childhood.

Nothing
like scaling

the
winged walls of memory

to
discover your friends

have
packed up their boxes

and
vanished.

More
like stumbling

into
a scene from the future,

where
the ghost

of
a husband

beckons
with pictures

of
a family

you
no longer recognize,

and
other peoples’ children

race
across the grass,

lulling
you into belief

that
you can always return like this –

without
key in hand,

to
lie in the folds of one city,

while
listening to the jagged,

carnal
breaths of another.

Tishani Doshi

from
Everything Begins Elsewhere

(Bloodaxe
Books, 2012)

Phrase
Book

I’m
standing here inside my skin,

which
will do for a Human Remains Pouch

for
the moment. Look down there (up here).

Quickly.
Slowly. This is my own front room

where
I’m lost in the action, live from a war,

on
screen. I am an Englishwoman, I don’t understand you.

What’s
the matter? You are right. You are wrong.

Things
are going well (badly). Am I disturbing you?

TV
is showing bliss as taught to pilots:

Blend,
Low silhouette, Irregular shape, Small,

Secluded.
(Please write it down. Please speak slowly.)

Bliss
is how I was in this very room

when
I raised my body to his mouth,

when
he even balanced me in the air,

or
at least I thought so and yes the pilots say

yes
they have caught it through the Side-Looking

Airborne
Radar, and through the J-Stars.

I
am expecting a gentleman (a young gentleman,

two
gentlemen, some gentlemen). Please send him

(them)
up at once. This is really beautiful.

Yes
they have seen us, the pilots, in the Kill Box

on
their screens, and played the routine for

getting
us Stealthed, that is, Cleansed, to you and me,

Taken
Out. They know how to move into a single room

like
that, to send in with Pinpoint Accuracy, a hundred Harms.

I
have two cases and a cardboard box. There is another

bag
there. I cannot open my case – look out,

the
lock is broken. Have I done enough?

Bliss,
the pilots say, is for evasion

and
escape. What’s love in all this debris?

Just
one person pounding another into dust,

into
dust. I do not know the word for it yet.

Where
is the British Consulate? Please explain.

What
does it mean? What must I do? Where

can
I find? What have I done? I have done

nothing.
Let me pass please. I am an Englishwoman.

Jo
Shapcott

Gopa

Brothers

How
lovely the elder brother’s

Life
all laced in the other’s,

Lóve-laced!—what
once I well

Witnessed;
so fortune fell.

When
Shrovetide, two years gone,

Our
boys’ plays brought on

Part
was picked for John,

Young
Jóhn: then fear, then joy

Ran
revel in the elder boy.

Their
night was come now; all

Our
company thronged the hall;

Henry,
by the wall,

Beckoned
me beside him:

I
came where called, and eyed him

By
meanwhiles; making my play

Turn
most on tender byplay.

For,
wrung all on love’s rack,

My
lad, and lost in Jack,

Smiled,
blushed, and bit his lip;

Or
drove, with a diver’s dip,

Clutched
hands down through clasped knees—

Truth’s
tokens tricks like these,

Old
telltales, with what stress

He
hung on the imp’s success.

Now
the other was bráss-bóld:

Hé
had no work to hold

His
heart up at the strain;

Nay,
roguish ran the vein.

Two
tedious acts were past;

Jack’s
call and cue at last;

When
Henry, heart-forsook,

Dropped
eyes and dared not look.

Eh,
how áll rúng!

Young
dog, he did give tongue!

But
Harry—in his hands he has flung

His
tear-tricked cheeks of flame

For
fond love and for shame.

Ah
Nature, framed in fault,

There
’s comfort then, there ’s salt;

Nature,
bad, base, and blind,

Dearly
thou canst be kind;

There
dearly thén, deárly,

I’ll
cry thou canst be kind.

Gerard
Manley Hopkins

Mathew

(poems of Claude
McKay)

A
Memory of June

When
June comes dancing o'er the death of May,

With
scarlet roses tinting her green breast,

And
mating thrushes ushering in her day,

And
Earth on tiptoe for her golden guest,

I
always see the evening when we met--

The
first of June baptized in tender rain--

And
walked home through the wide streets, gleaming wet,

Arms
locked, our warm flesh pulsing with love's pain.

I
always see the cheerful little room,

And
in the corner, fresh and white, the bed,

Sweet
scented with a delicate perfume,

Wherein
for one night only we were wed;

Where
in the starlit stillness we lay mute,

And
heard the whispering showers all night long,

And
your brown burning body was a lute

Whereon
my passion played his fevered song.

When
June comes dancing o'er the death of May,

With
scarlet roses staining her fair feet,

My
soul takes leave of me to sing all day

A
love so fugitive and so complete.

Commemoration

When
first your glory shone upon my face

My
body kindled to a mighty flame,

And
burnt you yielding in my hot embrace

Until
you swooned to love, breathing my name.

And
wonder came and filled our night of sleep,

Like
a new comet crimsoning the sky;

And
stillness like the stillness of the deep

Suspended
lay as an unuttered sigh.

I
never again shall feel your warm heart flushed,

Panting
with passion, naked unto mine,

Until
the throbbing world around is hushed

To
quiet worship at our scented shrine.

Nor
will your glory seek my swarthy face,

To
kindle and to change my jaded frame

Into
a miracle of godlike grace,

Transfigured,
bathed in your immortal flame.

Flower
of Love

The
perfume of your body dulls my sense.

I
want nor wine nor weed; your breath alone

Suffices.
In this moment rare and tense

I
worship at your breast. The flower is blown,

The
saffron petals tempt my amorous mouth,

The
yellow heart is radiant now with dew

Soft-scented,
redolent of my loved South;

O
flower of love! I give myself to you.

Uncovered
on your couch of figured green,

Here
let us linger indivisible.

The
portals of your sanctuary unseen

Receive
my offering, yielding unto me.

Oh,
with our love the night is warm and deep!

The
air is sweet, my flower, and sweet the flute

Whose
music lulls our burning brain to sleep,

While
we lie loving, passionate and mute.

French
Leave

No
servile little fear shall daunt my will

This
morning. I have courage steeled to say

I
will be lazy, conqueringly still,

I
will not lose the hours in toil this day.

The
roaring world without, careless of souls,

Shall
leave me to my placid dream of rest,

My
four walls shield me from its shouting ghouls,

And
all its hates have fled my quiet breast.

And
I will loll here resting, wide awake,

Dead
to the world of work, the world of love,

I
laze contented just for dreaming's sake

With
not the slightest urge to think or move.

How
tired unto death, how tired I was!

Now
for a day I put my burdens by,

And
like a child amidst the meadow grass

Under
the southern sun, I languid lie

And
feel the bed about me kindly deep,

My
strength ooze gently from my hollow bones,

My
worried brain drift aimlessly to sleep,

Like
softening to a song of tuneful tones.

The
Tired Worker

O
whisper, O my soul! The afternoon

Is
waning into evening, whisper soft!

Peace,
O my rebel heart! for soon the moon

From
out its misty veil will swing aloft!

Be
patient, weary body, soon the night

Will
wrap thee gently in her sable sheet,

And
with a leaden sigh thou wilt invite

To
rest thy tired hands and aching feet.

The
wretched day was theirs, the night is mine;

Come
tender sleep, and fold me to thy breast.

But
what steals out the gray clouds like red wine?

O
dawn! O dreaded dawn! O let me rest

Weary
my veins, my brain, my life! Have pity!

No!
Once again the harsh, the ugly city.

Sunil

(Poems by Kamala Das)

My
Grandmother's HouseThere is a house now far away where once I received
love ....... That woman died, The house withdrew into
silence, snakes moved Among books, I was then too young To
read, and my blood turned cold like the moon How often I think of
going There, to peer through blind eyes of windows or Just
listen to the frozen air, Or in wild despair, pick an armful of
Darkness to bring it here to lie Behind my bedroom door like
a brooding Dog ... you cannot believe, darling, Can you,
that I lived in such a house and Was proud, and loved ..... I
who have lost My way and beg now at strangers' doors to Receive
love, at least in small change?

WordsAll
round me are words, and words and words,They grow on me like
leaves, they neverSeem to stop their slow growingFrom
within... But I tell my self, wordsAre a nuisance, beware of
them, theyCan be so many things, aChasm where running feet
must pause, toLook, a sea with paralyzing waves,A blast of
burning air or,A knife most willing to cut your bestFriend's
throat... Words are a nuisance, but.They grow on me like leaves
on a tree,They never seem to stop their coming,From a silence,
somewhere deep within...

Posted by
Management - Learning from Experiences by Reflection
at
11:53 PM